Five Course Love: Extra Helpings of Dessert

Go to the theatre often enough these days and you're bound to hear a multitude of attempts (some successful, some somewhat less) to inject a little humor and originality into the pre-show "turn off your cell phones, no recording devices" announcement. But I believe this is the first time I've heard an a capella quartet threaten me with eternal hellfire and damnation. ("There is a fiery pit where we will surely fling / All those theatre patrons whose cell phones start to ring.")

But such silliness is an appropriate appetizer for Five Course Love, Gregg Coffin's loveably ludicrous musical of over-the-top romance. Inspired by the classic sketch comedy of TV variety programs such as The Carol Burnett Show and Your Show of Shows, Coffin packs 5 fast-moving playlets, each taking place in a different restaurant, into eighty intermissionless minutes, leaving no time for the appeal of one scenario to run dry before the next one starts up.

With each scene written for a man (John Bolton), a woman (Heather Ayers) and a waiter (Jeff Gurner), the trio of actors seem to be having a rollicking time serving up ham for the audience. We begin with a mismatched internet date coupling of an awkward nerdy guy with a spitfire cowgirl at a Texas BBQ. It's followed by a spaghetti opera of sorts with a nervy mobster carrying on with his boss's wife. I'm not sure how much of a plot there actually is in the German restaurant scene, where the centerpiece is a Dietrich style number sung by Ayers wearing tight black vinyl, a bright pink wig and brandishing a riding crop while crooning of the number of inches possessed by her lover. This hump sketch has the least effective material, but it's followed by the show's high point, a Mexican adventure featuring a Zorro-like bandit, his ditzy would-be girlfriend and the nice guy who loves her. The stories are nicely tied together in the last scene, set in a 1950's diner.

Coffin's derivative score is a lively and tuneful combination of country-western, mock-opera, pseudo-Weill, cheesy mariachi and early rock n' roll, with pleasantly goofy lyrics to match. You may not leave the theatre humming a memorable song, but it's the type of score that helps showcase the actors by giving them lots of obvious styles to parody. And he does give each actor one sincere ballad. Gurner's "The Blue Flame", praising the steady warmth of a love that may lack the white flame's brilliance, is especially touching.

Slickly directed by Emma Griffin, the outstanding cast will truly remind you of great ensembles like Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Bolton is preeningly manly and in great voice as a greasy mobster, a sexy Mexican bandit and a hip-shaking rocker. Ayers provides inspired lunacy as a randy two-stepper, a mindless senorita and a shy teen with a crush. Gurner is great fun as an assortment of waiters, including a butch cowpoke, and a sarcastic guitar balladeer.

G.W. Mercier designed the set to accommodate costume changes on the fly, and dresses the cast in an attractive and humorous display of outfits.

There's very little meat or much that is nourishing in Five Course Love. This is one show that makes a meal out of an assortment of tasty desserts.